Night+Day

wednesday
november 8
Of Oscars and Wire Hangers Faye Dunaway -- what a great name. After winning the 1977 Best Actress Oscar (for Network), Dunaway revived the Golden Age of Hollywood glamour with a poolside press conference; today, she's one of few regal film stars around (Kathleen "Tallulah" Turner's another). Since her starring debut in Bonnie and Clyde, Dunaway's career has had many highs (Chinatown, Barfly), and her extreme presence makes even her worst films (Mommie Dearest, The Wicked Lady) riveting. In conjunction with her new autobiography, Looking for Gatsby, the actress chats with Chronicle critic Edward Guthmann at 8 p.m. at the Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, S.F. Tickets are $15; call 392-4400.

Punk in Your Vitamins With both Green Day and Rancid topping the pop charts, their teen birthplace -- the drug- and alcohol-free Gilman Street Project -- is getting mucho media attention. Chris Larsen's photographs of the punk rock Honeycomb hide-out do a better job of capturing its energy than any trend-hopping puff pieces. You can see them from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the SFSU Student Center Art Gallery, 1650 Holloway, S.F. "The Gilman Street Project" continues through Nov. 29. Free; call 338-2580.

Sex, Death, and Rent Control Thanks to the new "openness" of glasnost, husband-and-wife Russian filmmaking team Yakov Poselski and Natasha Kosinets make documentaries about controversial topics. In I Murder for the Apartments, they expose criminals who kill heavy drinkers and old people for their living spaces. In The Fear Drug, they investigate the experimental testing of a new drug on animals and psychiatric patients. In Moscow Fags (banned from Russian TV), they uncover public harassment and government imprisonment of homosexuals. Poselski and Kosinets appear in conjunction with the Bay Area premiere of all three shorts at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive, 2625 Durant, Berkeley. Tickets are $5.50; call (510) 642-1124.

thursday
november 9
Operatic Octogenarians A fan of Douglas Sirk and a contemporary of Fassbinder, Daniel Schmid is drawn to themes -- the "performance" of life, desire as a projection, the mysteries of memory -- perfectly suited to cinema. Fantasy and reality merge in Schmid's Tosca's Kiss, a documentary shot at Casa Verdi, a retirement home for former opera singers. Well over 80 years old, many of the film's stars are still feisty and competitive when it comes to camera time. "Schmid has made a film about old age and dying which is neither sentimental nor grotesque but cumulatively startling," writes the Village Voice's J. Hoberman. "[Tosca's Kiss] comes truly into its own when a roomful of crones suddenly breaks into a lilting aria from Traviata." Schmid attends a screening of Tosca's Kiss and Notre Dame de la Croisette at 7 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive, 2625 Durant, Berkeley. Tickets are $5.50; call (510) 642-1124.

Do the Hustle! The 1961 movie The Hustler stars a hunky Paul Newman, but its title refers to pool more than sex. Based on text from the film's screenplay, David E. Johnston's three-part performance piece The Hustler scrutinizes masculinity and sexuality in rural America (specifically Texas). Featuring stories, songs, and slides, The Hustler (Part One: Twisted) opens at 8 p.m. at the LAB, 2948 16th St, S.F. The show continues through Nov. 18. Tickets are $7-10; call 864-8855.

Dance of Death Nov. 9, 1938: That's the date of Kristallnacht, when Nazis attacked Jewish-owned shops, businesses, and homes, burning synagogues and sending men to concentration camps. Nancy Karp and Dancers' Kristallnacht, Night of Broken Glass commemorates the tragedy. Set to an original score by Alvin Curran, the dance piece begins at 8 p.m. at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida, S.F. Kristallnacht continues through Nov. 12. Tickets are $13.50-15.50; call 621-7797.

The Deer Hunters The American Indian Film Festival celebrates its 20th year of programming with a restored print of 1930's The Silent Enemy, about Ojibway Indian life before Europeans settled in the Hudson Bay region. Based on some lite lit -- a 72-volume history of New France written by Jesuit missionaries -- the silent feature culminates with a showdown between a hungry tribe and a herd of stampeding caribou. See it (along with Borders and Ye-ah No-ah) at 7:30 p.m. at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, S.F. The festival continues through Nov. 19. Tickets are $5-6; call 554-0525.

friday
november 10
Death Traps of the Rich and Famous The disaster film is one ghastly phenomenon worth reviving: With Hollywood screen "talent" at an all-time low, it's time to see a new crop of "stars" tortured and humiliated. The Poseidon Adventure doesn't have child evangelist Marjoe Gortner trying to rape an Afro-coiffed Victoria Principal (as did Earthquake), and it doesn't have elderly Fred Astaire pinned under wreckage while O.J. Simpson saves people (as did The Towering Inferno). What it does have is an enormous Shelley Winters performing underwater rescue missions, a theme song by Maureen McGovern, and an image that captures capitalism in a nutshell: a white man in a suit crashing through a glass ceiling. Fresh from his chat with Faye Dunaway, the Chronicle's Edward Guthmann will interview featured actress Carol Lynley at a benefit screening of the film. Raising funds for S.F. General Hospital's AIDS ward, the event begins with a reception ($25) at 6:30 p.m.; the screening/interview starts at 8 p.m. at the Castro, Castro & Market, S.F. Tickets are $10; call 863-0611.